Hanukkah uncensored, part 2: The elephants kill and get killed

The following is the second in a three-part special, giving you the real and complete story of Hanukkah, from the deep socio-political background to the fruition of the dream of an independent Jewish kingdom under the heroic Maccabees – 19 years after the death of the famous Yehudah, or Judah.

These chapters are excerpted from “Jewcy Story: How the Jews blew redemption the last time around” by regular +972 contributor Rechavia (Rick) Berman. Read the first part here

We continue with our political thriller in Jerusalem, occupied for a second time by Seleucid Greeks. We spoke of the bastardization of the High Priesthood as a factor in the worsening relations between the masses on one hand, and the Hellenized elite and the Hellenist empire. But it’s also important to understand the new political system which the Hellenists tried to institute in the land of Israel, as opposed to the system that was in place before that. The Jews’ internal political system, during the rule of the Persians, the Ptolemys and Antiochus the Third, was relatively class-free. Of course there were social classes, and of course wealth carried influence. But in purely legal terms, there was equality before the law. There was also no list of citizens. Those who lived in the country lived in it, and were equal under the law.

The Hellenists, on the other hand, wanted to turn Jerusalem into a Greek polis, or city-state. In a Greek polis, there were clear distinctions between citizens and non-citizens. Take Athens, for instance. Remember being told about the enlightened system of government enjoyed in the “mother of democracy”? Well, the truth is a bit different. Oh, Athens had democracy, all right – if you were a citizen. And who was a citizen? Maybe 10% of the population. First of all, only men could be citizens, of course. But beyond that, there were more slaves than free people in the city, and even most of the free persons weren’t citizens – they were considered “foreign residents.”

That’s what the Hellenists – who were all upper class financially – were after: To declare themselves to be the only actual citizens of Jerusalem, and reduce the rest of the people to a disenfranchised status. In addition, Antiochus Epiphanes changed the taxation system in Israel: During the reigns of the Persians and the Ptolemys there was a uniform tax rate, and everyone knew what to expect. Epiphanes instituted a different system: He appointed tax collectors, demanded a certain rate from them, and left it to the collectors to decide how much to collect from each individual and how to do it. If the collector came up with less than his quota, he had to make up the difference out of pocket. If he collected more, he could keep the difference for himself. Guess what the tax collectors chose? The impact on the general mood is easy to guess. Another thing that barely needs to be pointed out is that the tax collectors had a different attitude toward those who adopted their culture versus those who rejected it (some in an annoyingly deliberate manner).

Triple Oppression = Explosion

So we have political disenfranchisement, economic oppression, and as though that wasn’t enough, religious persecution as well. The year is 168 BCE and Jerusalem is recovering from a massacre conducted by King Epiphanes. His general, Lysimachus, stations foreign soldiers in the city and these bring their idols with them. The foreign soldiers may not intentionally want to ruin the odd local religion, but they also see no reason to refrain from sacrificing to their gods in the nice little temple (nothing amazing at this point, but still a building fully equipped with all that’s needed for sacrifice) that’s just sitting there waiting. Another thing that didn’t help calm the tensions was that Menelaus, the High Priest who bought the post and accelerated the Hellenization process, lost the ability to separate his own funds from the temple treasury. The usurper used the sacred funds to finance the growing bribes he was forced to pay to hold on to his job. One payment was to ensure that Honio, the legitimate High Priest who was under arrest in Antioch, be executed. In another, it was to ensure the execution of the representatives of the Elders Council who came to complain about his conduct.

All this, of course, caused another uprising by the locals. One can only guess what went through the minds of most Hellenizers, who despite their attraction to the foreign culture knew their own people and could have guessed that these steps would not pass quietly. One can assume that after involving the Seleucid king himself in the battle for prestige in Jerusalem – and the king’s own prestige was on the rocks after being humiliatingly chased away from Egypt by Rome – the local Hellenizers were no longer in control of the situation.

In any event, King Antiochus had had it up to here by now. More than his pride in Hellenism being hurt, he sees the persistent rejection of any Hellenist trapping as a political threat of the first magnitude, and he is in no condition to afford that. He takes a step – virtually unprecedented in the ancient world – of outlawing a religion. The book of 1st Maccabees brings the highlights of Epiphanes’ edict:

For the king had sent letters by messengers unto Jerusalem and the cities of Judah that they should follow laws strange to the land, and forbid burnt offerings, and sacrifice, and drink offerings, in the temple; and that they should profane the Sabbaths and festival days: And pollute the sanctuary and holy people: Set up altars, and groves, and chapels of idols, and sacrifice swine’s flesh, and unclean beasts: That they should also leave their children uncircumcised, and make their souls abominable with all manner of uncleanness and profanation: To the end they might forget the law, and change all the ordinances. And whosoever would not do according to the commandment of the king, he said, he should die.” (1st Maccabees, 1:44-51)

Many modern scholars doubt whether there really was such an edict and if so, whether it said exactly what the book of Maccabees says it did. But Antiochus Epiphanes already had fights elsewhere with local customs and the rejection of Hellenism as a characteristic of political opposition, so the description is far from baseless.

That is, not only did the king forbid the public practice of Jewish rituals, he also ordered the Jews to actively violate the laws of their religion, on pain of death. The Book of Maccabees goes on to tell that the king appointed officers to ensure that his edict be carried out and sent them to all the cities and towns of Judea, to hold public rituals sacrificing beasts considered unclean in Judaism and force the populace to participate in them.

According to Jewish tradition, one of these officers was named Apelles, and one day he arrived, in the course of his “just following orders”, at a small town called Modi’in, some 6.5 miles east of modern-day Lod and right next to the modern Israeli city of the same name.

A Touch of Military Genius

From this point the story gets familiar to anyone with a Jewish background. Apelles tried to force the people of Modi’in to participate in the sacrifice of a pig to Zeus as an offering to the King’s well-being – an act of political submission, as the Greeks saw it. A local priest named Mattithyahu the Hasmonean kills him, cries out “Whoever is for Jehovah – with me!” and leaves with his five sturdy sons, Yehudah (Judah), Yochanan (John), Shimon, Eleazar, and the youngster Yonantan (Jonathan), and with everyone who heeded his call to the mountaintops and to the desert beyond, where it was hard to chase rebels even a thousand years before.

We have already proved that there was a not very well organized popular uprising in existence even before this, since the sources mention that extant fighting units joined Mattityahu and his sons as soon as they fled to the desert. But the Hasmoneans of Modi’in, who adopted the name “Maccabee” (which is either an acronym of “Who Is Like Thee Among The Gods Jehovah” or a synonym for “Hammer”, depending on the spelling), gave the rebellion something it desperately needed: serious organization and a touch of military genius.

The rebels, organized in the old biblical method of commanders of thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens, utilized classic guerrilla tactics. This is how they were able to inflict serious casualties upon the Greek forces, who fought in strict phalanx formations and marched in military order along the slope-flanked roads of the Jerusalem Mountains. The first victim was the Greek commander Apollonius, who tried to join with the forces in Jerusalem from the north, but found the rebels swooping down on him from an ambush at Ma’ale Levona (near the current-day settlement of Shiloh, in the Samaria district of the occupied West Bank) and fell in the battle. This first victory did not suffice to persuade the masses to risk open rebellion, despite their obvious sympathy. So Yehudah obliterated another force, led by the commander Syron, in a very similar manner at Beit Horon (Near the settlement Givat Ze’ev). At this point Yehudah began to get many new volunteers, which allowed him to vary his tactics and employ bolder methods.

In addition to the new volunteers, Yehudah also got aid from seasoned and high ranking Jewish officers in the Egyptian military, whose Ptolemaic bosses were only too happy to let them go help their kin against the hated Seleucids.

At this point two Greek armies were defeated while attempting to reinforce the garrison in Jerusalem, and the Seleucids realized that they must open the road. Lysias, governor of the western part of the Seleucid kingdom, sent a commander named Georgias. This nice man camped at a place named Emmaus in the valley of Ayalon, a bit to the east of modern-day Latrun, on the road that served those travelling from the central valleys to Jerusalem.

Georgias had a brilliant idea: “Why don’t I take 5,000 foot soldiers and cavalry, raid Yehudah’s camp at night and surprise him for change?”

But Yehudah, who at this point was the supreme commander of the rebellion after the death of his father in the previous battle, was as we said a military genius. He asked himself “what would I do in Georgias’s position?” and this question led him to the same brilliant idea with which Georgias, at this stage, was still mightily pleased. So Yehudah evacuated his camp – but left the camp fires burning, so that Georgias would keep heading there. Yehudah’s guerrilla fighters circled around a bit, descended on Emmaus, eliminated the force left by Georgias to guard the camp and chased the remnants – and the second senior commander in the force, Nicanor “all the way to low lands”.

Even Jerusalem Wasn’t Completely Liberated

After proving tactical genius, Yehudah continued to impress and showed leadership and steely discipline, by ordering his army to break off the chase and give up the anticipated loot. Yehudah and his army turned back and fought off the exhausted Georgias and his army who were trying to pursue them. The Book of Maccabees says that Georgias fled “to the land of the Philistines”, which would seem to mean south-west, towards the biblical Ekron and modern-day Kiryat Gat. In any event, the Greek army was pushed for the first time entirely out of Judea and was in danger of losing the entire province.

Lysias was not a complete idiot. He tried again, learned his lesson and avoided the easily ambushed mountain roads. He used the help of the Edomites, who controlled the countryside south-east of Judea, and took control of the Watershed Divide. He managed to get within one day’s march of Jerusalem, and Yehudah realized that all his previous efforts will go down the drain if the Greek commander managed to break the siege on the city. He managed to raise a force of 10,000 fighters – by some estimates, 2% of the entire population of Judea. There aren’t many reliable details of the battle that ensued (renowned scholar Michael Avi-Yona calls the description in 2nd Maccabees, which is mainly devoted to the glorification of Yehudah, “mythical”.), but Yehudah was victorious once again. Josephus tells that Yehudah defeated the Greek vanguard and killed 5,000 of its soldiers.

After this defeat Lysias reached the conclusion that the conflict could not be solved militarily, and entered into negotiations with the rebels. The king agreed to pardon the rebels, but did not explicitly allow the purification of the temple, nor did he recognize Yehudah’s leadership over the people of Zion. The rebels rejected this offer and negotiations continued alongside low-scale hostilities. In the winter of of 164 BCE, Yehudah gained control over the eastern half of Jerusalem, including the temple mount. This is the part where a tiny jug of oil lasted for eight days and alla that. No latkes were eaten on this festive occasion, since the introduction of spuds to that part of the world was still a millennium and a half away, but the temple was purified and restored to its original purpose, and there was much rejoicing. Thus was born the second Jewish festival to be instituted by human decree rather than by God. Like the name Maccabee, the name Hanukkah also has a dual meaning – it can be read as “Hanu-Kaf-heh”, which indicates that “They camped on the 25th of the month” (the first day of the festival of Hanukkah, marking the day Yehudah’s forces entered the temple, is the kaf-heh, or 25th of Kislev), or as referring to an “inauguration”, a “dedication” or a “consecration” – all fitting verbs to describe the re-opening of the temple to the worship of the Jewish God.

However, the popular impression that Hanukkah marks some complete and final victory over foreign rule is simply not true. Even Jerusalem wasn’t completely liberated at this point, and Yehudah was forced to agree to the continued presence of the Greek garrison in the Chakra citadel in the city, although he soon resumed the siege on this last redoubt as well.

The Sad End of the Elephants (and of Yehudah)

Most of Yehudah’s followers were content with religious freedom and with purifying the temple. Only a small part stuck with Yehudah, who continued to fight for political independence as well.

The success of the Jewish rebellion improved the lot of the Jews in Judea, but in a dynamic familiar today as well, aroused antagonism in other places. Jews living across the Jordan and in the northern parts of the country found themselves persecuted, and Yehudah carried out a series of actions to alleviate their suffering and bring them into the stronghold of Judea. In this he was aided by a fascinating people known as the Nabateans. This ancient nation, which ruled over territory from the modern-day border of Jordan and Saudi Arabia all the way to the central Negev in modern Israel, had never yielded to the Seleucid Empire. Since they viewed this empire as an enemy, they were glad to help a man like Yehudah, who was a thorn in the Empire’s side.

Yehudah continued to fight for political liberation with a small part of the forces formerly at his disposal, and began to lose. The first defeat, at Beit Zecharia (near modern-day Kfar Etzion), saw the death of his brother Eleazar, who according to 2nd Maccabees was crushed to death by a war elephant as he attempted to stab it in the belly. This use of elephants, by the way, cost the Seleucids dearly. According to the armistice agreement following the Roman victory over Antiochus III, the Seleucids were forbidden to use war elephants. The Romans got word that the poor animals were used at the battle of Beit Zecharia, and decided to put them out of their misery. A single Roman senator was dispatched to Antioch, and  didn’t leave until the Greeks slaughtered their war elephants, down to the last one, before his very eyes.

Meanwhile, in Antioch, Demetrius the First ascends the throne. He insists on repeating his predecessors’ mistakes and appoints a High Priest in Jerusalem – the Hellenizer Elyakim, nee’ Alkimus, who persecutes the “faithful”, kills sixty of them in Jerusalem (including his uncle, Yossei son of Yoezer, who was President of the new incarnation of the ancient “Grand Knesset”, now known as the Sanhedrin), and reneges on the agreements which allowed for any sort of coexistence. Yehudah rises up against Alkimus, and the Greek king sends a new military force headed by the commander Nicanor.

Yehudah’s situation was getting worse, but his tactical ability had not deserted him yet, and he managed to record another brilliant victory (again near Beir Horon) against Nicanor, who falls in the battle. After this battle Yehudah takes control of all of Jerusalem and provides such relief to the people at the time, that another holiday is established in his honor, in addition to Hanukah, which is held on the third of Adar (around March) and kept for hundreds of years afterwards. Following this victory Rome decides that maybe this rebel who’s making the Seleucids’ lives miserable may be of use to it, and it signs a mutual defense pact with him (which it does very little to uphold in practice, by the way.)

But this is where Yehudah turns from a brilliant and inspired guerrilla warrior to just another blind fanatic. Immediately after his victory over Nicanor he is set upon by the much more talented commander Bacchides, at the head of 20 thousand warriors. Yehudah had three thousand fighters at best, and most of those fled at the sight of the Greek force. Those who remained begged Yehudah not to play into the enemy’s hands, but to retreat and fight another day. Yehudah’s answer, as recorded in 1st Maccabees, was “God forbid that I do so, to flee from them, and if our day has come then we shall die bravely for our brethren lest our honor turn to shame.”

Yehudah conducted a daring raid on Bacchides’ flank, hoping to kill the commander himself and sow despair in his army. Bacchides was indeed forced to retreat, but the bulk of his force attacked Yehudah in the back, leaving him no chance. Yehudah fell in the battle and his remaining brothers – Shimon, Jochanan and Yonatan – were forced to retreat to the Gophna ridge overlooking the Judean desert, and in essence begin the rebellion from scratch. The year is 161 BCE, and it would be another 19 years before Yehudah’s ambition would be realized, and Jews would have political independence centered in Jerusalem.

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Point in Time (200-100 BCE):

In Britain: The Celts settle on the island, while their relatives (other Celtic tribes) battle Germanic tribes in what is now France.

In Egypt: Alexandria becomes the biggest and most important city in the world, overshadowing Athens and the rest of the Greek cities.

In Rome: The tribune brothers Tiberius and Caius Gracchus manage to pass important reforms benefitting the common masses.

In China: The Han Empire begins to suffer invasions by Hun tribes, but Emperor Wu-Ti expands the borders of the kingdom.

In South America: Along the southern coast of Peru the Nazca civilization flourishes, creating line drawings over immense areas and also an advanced subterranean water delivery system.

In sub-Saharan Africa: Use of iron begins.

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Coming soon, Part 3 of the Hanukkah special: The Genius of Jonathan, in which we learn that diplomacy does what derring-do does not